October 25, 2006

8:00 a.m.
Livingston Lord Library 120D


Present: Jean Sando, chair; Tim Decker, Ellen Brisch, Ellen Hill, Rajiv Kalra, Mike McCord, Margaret Sankey, Brian Smith, Stacy Voeller

Minutes: Moved by Brisch, seconded by Smith to approve October 11, 2006 minutes. The motion was approved unanimously.

Dragon Core Assessment Plan: Sando reviewed the discussion from the previous meeting and the subsequent revisions to the draft plan, in particular the use of portfolios in the assessment process. McCord and Decker noted that the English department and the Corrick Center are looking at using portfolios.

Discussion ensued on how to manage assessment, how data would be gathered and whether there would be so much data that it might become overwhelming. Questions that assessment needs to answer are:

1. How well are the Student Competencies of each area being covered?
2. Are any Student Competencies consistently not being addressed?
3. How well are the students meeting the competencies?

Discussion opened Writing-Intensive (WI) assessment and the following questions were raised:

1. Will assessment of Dragon Core WI courses be done separately from other WI courses?
2. Would the same type of data be viable to DCAC as well as individual departments?
3. Who is charged with WI assessment?

Sando agreed to follow up on the questions and report back to the committee.

Dialogue on Outer Cluster course assessment opened with Sando announced that courses are being proposed to the three areas. She noted that if the committee decides to use a capstone project/reflective portfolio then the procedures need to be developed soon and disseminated to faculty. Whether the student or the faculty member would be responsible for submitting materials to the portfolio and what would be submitted was discussed. It was suggested that at least three reflective pieces for each student would be sufficient. Other issues discussed were electronic versus hardcopy submissions, how to handle materials such as posters or art projects, and whether instructor comments on materials (not the grade) would be valuable. How and whether to incorporate the Student Academic Conference into the plan was also discussed.

It was noted that the Outer Cluster competency areas will contain courses from a broad spectrum of the campus and an Outer Cluster program committee might be needed. An issues raised was the feedback loop and who, besides the Dragon Core Committee, would need assessment data.

Ways to promote a culture of assessment on campus, the confusion between assessment and evaluation, and how to promote inter-rater reliability were discussed. It was noted that the possibility of obtaining Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores for MSUM students and using the scores as a quantitative measure was suggested. Since sources of quantitative measures are hard to find it was suggested that MSUM develop its own tests.

Sando agreed to prepare an assessment sample for use in a reflective portfolio for review and discussion at the next meeting.

Next Meeting: Wednesday, November 1, 2006 at 8:00 a.m. in LI 120D.

The meeting adjourned at 8:55 a.m.
 

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